


One Thing I Believe

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: You Only Meant Well? [12]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AFAB Frisk, Ambiguity, Anger, Chara Being An Asshole, Chara Is Their Own Warning, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Manipulation, Flavor Text Narrator Chara, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heavy Angst, I Made Myself Cry (again), Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Non-Binary Frisk, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Swearing, Verbal Humiliation, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: The REAL battle begins.And Frisk realizes, as perhaps they always knew, it's about much more than them and Chara, than the struggle for their body and their SOUL. It's for all their friends, and the world they've made in this truest, most precious timeline of them all.Or: "If your burdened SOUL can't find the morning light . . ."





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Now you're hiding  
> with a shameful soul,  
> And child what you done  
> Sent shivers through your bones . . .
> 
> You're gonna stumble  
> until you're knee-deep in the water,  
> with your chest heaving,  
> and those tears on your face  
> have been blaming me.  
> But I'm clean and you're clean,  
> Though you don't feel your soul  
> or see the sun . . .
> 
> Come find me, come find me;  
> I'll set your mind at ease.  
> Your aching soul is gonna make it home:  
> That's one thing I believe.
> 
> Come on back home.  
> It's gonna be alright.  
> These open arms are a welcome sight.  
> If your burdened soul  
> Can't find the morning light,  
> I'm here tonight."  
> (Sam Burchfield, "Here Tonight".)

****

  _T_ _hey wonder, briefly, what will happen when—_

_But—_

_To save this world? Their friends?_

_**You're so afraid of dying?** _

_Frisk swallows, crouches down, remembers the comfort of their friends and feels renewed strength run through their limbs._ No. I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid to die.

* * *

 She wakes screaming.

Not many times has such a thing happened—and certainly not thus—when she finds herself in as good as a stranger's house. Perhaps the last time she can recall waking from a nightmare, it was to search for Asgore's warmth—or else—no—perhaps it was in the RUINS—when there was no one, no one—just the echoes of her dead son, crying, or that Human child's eerie laughter playing through the stones—the child who slept in the soil, beneath the roots of golden flowers.

Or—was it—sometime Surface-side, sometime she's conveniently forgotten for a streak of pride—when cool, cool flares of cyan light found her, woke her, when she sought and seeks still, now, the strange radiated warmth of him, a Monster wrought of bones—

"Sans? Dear one?"

No answer. Of course there is none. He's in the Humans' place of healing—the hospital—with Frisk—except—they aren't really Frisk—or so everyone has said—

Her throat seems to tie itself into a knot and she swallows convulsively, determined not to cry. She will cry at funerals, at burials, but never before then.

They are not lost.

They are not lost.

Not yet.

And he is with them.

And—

* * *

Alphys and Undyne's house is still. It does not creak as their house creaks, with its old-crackling foundation. Sometimes she thinks she catches something from the basement, shakes it off as her subconscious. Definitely through the wall she hears Asgore snoring, and the familiar sound, unheard for centuries, leaves an aching emptiness—not loss, not longing, none of those—merely a void, for which she doesn't know quite what to feel.

Nor does she know what woke her, what horrid dream had played itself to wakefulness within her mind. She gazes through the semi-darkness, half-lit by the nightlights Alphys keeps in every room, the sum of which generates a quiet ambience, perpetual predawn, throughout the house. Perhaps Sans has good reasons to dislike such golden glow—she doesn't like it, either.

No—night is for the darkness, for the moon to wax too brightly yet, if anything is bright at all.

(Vaguely, for the emptiness, for the chill of the room without him, his now-familiar warmth, she thinks of other lights, far brighter than the moonglow could ever be—indigo and cyan trails weaving and dancing and twisting to the music of their SOULs, that primordial, hallowed song—

(But, of course, no one but _them_ knows of that light—)

Toriel blushes deeply, is startled by an approaching seismic rumble, the shuddering of floorboards beneath great feet which, admittedly, were never engineered to bear such a hurrying, colossal form.

And then the hasty, unmistakable rolling of a ceramic pot—a hushed exchange of voices—tenor and basso—

When the curtains Alphys has hung up in lieu of a proper door are ruffled aside, it's by the slightest form alone; Toriel shifts, struggling not to knock into the coffee table or the couch which have all been pushed back against the walls to make a sort of guestroom—or, at least, a space big enough for her to sleep.

Asgore had offered to take the floor out here, that she might have the one bed big enough, but pride and decency led her to refuse—the sore back she'd have in the morning was a small price to pay indeed. Besides, besides . . . to sleep where her ex-husband slept . . . and with Sans and the child gone . . . too many things were out of place; her world, _their_ world, would all be far less rattled if she were to just sleep in the living room.

But it doesn't matter, any of it, the whole of their petty weakness and weariness so insignificant when she but thinks of the child—of their Frisk—

The pot scrapes closer yet; she hears the soft slithering hiss-iss of vines as he pulls himself across the floor. When again Toriel opens her eyes it's to find her son's face, still a wonderment, peering steadily into her own, his gaze like a mirror.

"Dad and I heard you—" Asriel catches at the words, works his tiny fangs a moment, searches for a different tack. "Mom, are you okay?"

A slow exhale; through Alphys' strange nightlights he watches as she shifts, rolls to face him properly, wrapped up in those many blankets, that great face of hers now peeking out at him from the shadows, much as he's so often shielded himself with petals. Gently, though, she smiles, a genuine soft-thing.

"I am fine, dearest son of mine, but I am worried for our Frisk."

"Me too." Asriel's stem droops a moment, as if he wishes now to hide within the pot itself. He doesn't dare explain that he's seen them that way before—the way they'd been before Asgore grabbed him, pulling him out of the room—and then Papyrus joined them—and—

The eyes, cold, mirthful, ruthless—

And that smile—oh—

To see Chara with that wicked grin always scared him, but when he was a child, in his truest form, what could he know? And yet—years later—when whom he'd once been was somehow far more distant a memory than _them_ —to see that sweet DETERMINED child who at heart was such a pacifist suddenly encounter him, wearing that same smile—

"Come here, dearest."

With one massive paw curled around the pot she pulls him close, and there they lay for a long moment, Asriel snuffling as he remembers how Frisk used to wrap him in their blankets, as if he had a body still which needed such warmth—

"If they are doing well . . ." _What does that even mean?_ "If they are well in the morning, dearest, we will go and see them. How does that sound?"

The royal child nods his head, buries his petals there against her, sighs.

But Toriel is worried. She has heard nothing from Sans, and so goes the adage that no news is good news—but—she's never much cared for such silences, not at times like this. It's not like him to be so quiet—and yet—surely—surely he would have texted (or called, better yet) if something was amiss—?

* * *

There is a flash of light—

* * *

She's on her feet then with a cry, a startling move of speed and primal grace and fear and fury, clutching Asriel to her, indigo flames dancing despite her pacifist SOUL there at her claws. Said light softens when she blinks, softens again a moment later, dulls from glaring white to cyan— _cyan_ —

When Sans steps from the darkness, it's never—bright—

Whatever exclamation she might have given dies against her lips, her SOUL grows cold, only Asriel's vines tightening against her paws keep her tethered there—unwilling to face the truth before them, she stares down at him instead, her son, her brave, good son whose vermilion eyes, if tear-crystal-struck, are steady, almost stern, and by that gaze alone Tori lifts her head again.

Sans stumbles on one of the tables Alphys moved, not knowing that the coordinates he had were temporarily outdated. But it doesn't matter; here he is, they are, and Tori—

 _tori_ —

* * *

The kid is heavy; the only strength he had was to bear them through the darkness; now his staggering feet drop him to his knees, the crack of bone on wooden floor sending a shiver up the great Boss Monster's spine. With Asriel hastily settled back in her nest of blankets she swoops forward, paws slipped beneath his shaking arms to help support their body. They're still clad in the gown the doctors had issued and—and their own sweater?—but—they are so muddy—the bandages are torn—there is fresh-caked blood mingled with the dirt—

"What has happened?"

No answer, merely a rattling of bones, a weariness pouring from his SOUL as surely as the magic from his hand and eye.

"Sans?" The name of her beloved then is something strangely bitter stuck against her throat. Foreboding lies thick in the air, a tangible darkness.

Reflexively she reaches out, SOUL seeking the child's, indigo light lapping over them—the both of them—a healing balm. Their wounds are knit, easily enough; thankfully there is no cracking of his SOUL, superficially fragile as it is—but then—

Humans need more than their SOUL to live, do they not?

And the child's heart, that physical organ bearing so hollowly a name synonymous with the very shape of their SOUL, is beating so slowly—

But—

Toriel glances up from that pitiful form to find Sans watching her, every part of him grown tense. That ever-present grin of his is taut, is almost savage, not for savagery's sake (that he could never be, she's sure) but from sheer desperation—a wordless pleading—a confession—but for what? For what?

And then she registers dimly that in her rush to heal the child, she hardly took stock of their wounds: most were self-inflicted things of the nature that she'd seen before—seen but never healed; the other day, before the hospital, for the child's reckless wildness there'd been no time—and too many questions would the doctors ask if suddenly those wounds were gone—

But aside from those there was another wound, no bigger than a nick, a sliver.

And traces of some strange magic she's never felt before . . .

She and Sans, without a word, reach for the child once again, in tandem this time, indigo and cyan magic whispering soft-soothing things to them—

And Toriel's dread mounts.

It was terrifying, seeing Chara's eyes peering out at them from Frisk's, hearing _their_ voice, but now—

There _is_ a SOUL, but it's as no SOUL she's felt before. The closest thing to which it compares is . . . not the captured SOUL of a dead child . . . but . . . something SOULless altogether? Or some unholy combination of the two—

Great shudders wrack her form and she picks up the child, holding them, just holding them, clenching her fangs over her cries that she won't frighten Asriel, who has never seen her weep for loss or fear, not even when Asgore was so sick. Children should not see such weakness from their parents—

"Eh? 'S goin' on . . . ?"

Alphys, rubbing at her eyes, blearily fixing her spectacles across her nose; Undyne, somewhat more alert but silent, silent, face rigid with uncertainty, adrenaline; the hunkering shadow of Asgore, his shadowed, sleep-tousled face taking in the situation and, like Toriel, finding himself filled suddenly with deepest terror; finally, finally, there comes dear Papyrus . . .

"BROTHER? QUEEN TORIEL? WHAT IS—WHY IS FRISK HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL SO SOON? W-WHY ARE THEY SO DIRTY? WHY ARE THEY SO STILL?"

No one dares to speak for a long moment, the adults gathering slowly into the room. Asriel's managed to extricate himself from the blanket-nest and on shaking vines begins dragging himself toward his dearest friend. In such shock are all that only when he's made half the journey does Papyrus finally take notice and swiftly jump to help him, petting absently and awkwardly his petaled, tear-moistened pollened face.

"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE SAY ANYTHING?"

"P'yrus. Uhm." Undyne lays a surprisingly gentle hand against his shoulder. "Uhm . . ."

Toriel's head whips up, her eyes ablaze, her gleaming fangs effectively quelling the sentence in the former soldier's throat. "They are _not_ dead!"

A wide, wide yellow eye. "Uhm. I didn't mean—"

"Then hold your peace!" the Boss Monster snarls, ducking her head again; in Alphys' many nightlights and the residual glow from both her magic and Sans' own, they see her face is wet with tears.

Alphys reaches for her lover's hand, stroking at it absently, a self-soothing gesture as much as for Undyne—who, admittedly, has shown herself to need such comforts, too, but to be too proud to admit it . . .

"S-Sans . . . w-what happened? W-Why . . ."

"al . . ."

Dark, dark eyes meet hers, reminding her suddenly and eerily of Gaster's—

"tori, frisk asked me to bring them to you, and now that's been done, and—"

"What . . . what did Chara do to them?"

On bones still trembling he stands, staring down at the child's body, as good as dead or sleeping.

"i think we need to get them home, to their own bed."

"You have much that you must tell us," Asgore rumbles finally, his crimson eyes downcast, mere slivers almost lost to his bushy brows and the soft fur of his cheeks. "Even I can sense traces of— . . . Sans, you are our arbiter, our judge—but I have never felt—"

"no." Sans shakes his head, stalls all questions, speaks then far more to himself. "no. not in this timeline."

* * *

For a moment no one dares to speak. Toriel's regained her feet, cradling the child oh-so-easily; Sans catches her arm, leaning into her, wondering how he's going to find the strength for this—and not merely navigation of the darkness—but all that which is to come . . . "please. give me—give us—some time. the kiddo needs to . . . rest."

"That is not a natural sleep," Asgore murmurs gently.

"The Human doctors gave them a—a sleeping medicine—but that is not . . . this does not feel the same to me." Toriel stares down at them, startled still at what she's felt.

Asgore shakes his head, bewildered. "Will you explain this to us? What you've done?"

Papyrus watches in alarm as his brother fights to keep his feet, stumbling against the words as surely as if they were a blow. "BROTHER—"

_NO, NOT THAT—_

Swallowing his trepidation, he turns then to the king, realizing that it isn't Sans who needs addressing: "S-SIRE, PLEASE, LET THEM GO BACK TO OUR HOUSE AND MAKE THE CHILD WELL. I AM SURE THERE IS A GOOD REASON FOR THIS, AND IT WILL BE EXPLAINED WHEN ALL IS RIGHT AGAIN."

" _If_ a-anything is r-right a-again," Alphys mutters wearily, but no one seems to hear, and as Sans and Tori vanish into the darkness, oh, she's glad.

* * *

"I w-wanted to go _w-with_ . . ."

The adults have slowly left the room, settled themselves around the kitchen table; Asgore's drawn up tea.

But Asriel's refused, and Papyrus can't abandon him, crying and restive as he is. The skeleton's settled the both of them in the blankets Toriel had used, SOUL-sick himself at everything that's happened: the Human child's illness, their strange actions, and all this blame seemingly heaped upon his brother—but—

"I KNOW, PRINCE ASRIEL, BUT THE CHILD NEEDS TO BE ALONE, I THINK. SEE? THEY DID NOT ASK ME TO COME HOME, EITHER."

"B-but anyway, they aren't alone; M-Mom and Sans—"

"YES, BUT I THINK THE CARE THEY NEED IS . . . SPECIAL. SOMETHING ONLY THE TWO OF THEM CAN DO. WE WOULD JUST BE IN THEIR WAY."

A sharp cacophony of voices reaches them, Asgore's deep, placating rumble foremost among the fray, accentuated by an occasional jab from Undyne and Alphys' worried trill. Papyrus doesn't catch many of the words but gathers soon enough that Asgore's on the phone with some panicked official from the hospital, who called to ask where on earth the child is, and then to explain to him—with a derogatory simplicity—that one can't just remove a patient from the premises—

"No," the great king finally manages to get in edgewise, ever dignified and patient, "no, we understand. But they are here, and they are safe, and I am sorry for whatever trouble this has caused you, but please do not be worried. They are in good hands. Goodbye."

And somehow the knowledge that the former king of Monsters just hung up the phone on someone brings a smile even to Asriel's still-bewildered face.

* * *

"You will explain what is happening."

In an eerie echo from before, Toriel's settled herself on the floor next to the child's bed, while Sans perches at the foot. The room is dark, the windows shuttered against whatever light might pierce through those depths—from sun, from moon, from stars or those disconcerting orange lamps the Humans keep alight outside at night.

How much time _has_ passed? Sans doesn't know. It's all been a nightmare. Time doesn't matter—no—not when what's far more important is the sleeping child there before them, who has not stirred, who still breathes, whose heart still beats and whose SOUL—whose SOUL—

Toriel reaches for him.

Gently.

He almost flinches back, startled at her touch, startled at her persistent gentleness.

She has every reason to hate him . . . Surely now she understands that he—

_well, if not now, then soon . . ._

"tori. look. when frisk came out of those sedatives, they . . . they weren't themself."

"Chara. Again."

"yeah. but. frisk's still there, tori. i—i felt them. in their SOUL."

"Do they share a SOUL, then? Outright? Or is Chara their own—"

"their own personality, at least. so . . . i felt frisk, i _heard_ frisk. through that remnant of them, the part of their SOUL that's still their own right now."

"This . . . dirt that was on them . . ."

Toriel suppresses a shudder, remembering what it was to wash that unresponsive body—far too much like washing another sick, sick Human child and knowing deep within her SOUL that it was as good as for their burial—

_But they are alive. In pajamas and alive and . . . sleeping . . ._

"frisk suggested that . . . some answer, some solution, might come if we . . . if we went to chara's grave."

Something of stretched truth in that—there'd been no solution at the first, not certitude outright even at the last; her eyes meet his and flick away.

"and then . . . after chara . . . tori, this thing with chara won't ever end. you understand that, right? not unless something . . . changes. not unless something's radically different. i don't know what there is to change, or win, or what could differ in this timeline from the rest . . . how we've gotten so far . . . but if our frisk—if they come back to us—"

"Sans." Weariness, great weariness, the sum of centuries and information that she's already known. Toriel rubs at her head, brushing back one of those soft, soft ears which he so loves. "Please. I do not have the strength to think of those myriads of futures you so fear. I have strength only for today. Just explain to me how they got like this. And whatever happened . . . there . . . down there . . . between you three . . . I do not . . . I cannot . . . I do not feel it is my place to know."

"hm."

Sans looks at her a moment, asks a question without words, something significant therein passed between them. Then he drops down to sit beside her, leaning into her, closing his eyes, fighting the fatigue that always dogs him.

"frisk asked me to do it. they think it's the way to . . ."

". . . What . . . is the way?" Still, still gentle, somehow, despite everything—she begins to card her paws across his skull. Her voice is low, is thick, reminding him somewhat of a thing Humans call molasses: thick, dark, sweet, bitter. "When I healed the child now, I felt many of the wounds they've inflicted on themself. But there was another one I cannot account for, just the smallest thing that scarcely did I notice it . . . and a—and remnants of a magic I have never known."

A shifting of the skeleton, a final gathering of strength, something almost tangible she feels welling in his SOUL. "it's called karmic retribution."

* * *

They are screaming, writhing . . . awful, obscene strings against their lips like spit flecked from gnashing teeth and zealous tongue . . .

Frisk watches them, as if watching through a mirror, or a window—which it is, they can't decide: since Sans heard and heeded them—they'll never be able to tell him how grateful they are—the world's seemed fixed into a sharper focus. No longer is this . . . experience . . . so intangible: now that they've felt him strike the blow, the slightest wound—though wounds always speak too loud, it seems—and felt Mom's healing fire cauterize those very hurts, Chara-struck and otherwise . . . well, now it feels more real. They feel something solid underneath them—the bed beneath the body—the blankets wrapped around them—although what they see with their eyes is still much akin to dreaming—

The wound Sans had struck is gone.

Frisk no longer feels it—nor, they think, does Chara, but of course it wasn't for the wound itself that Frisk held out such hope—

Chara seems a figure there before them now, neither a disembodiment nor voice nor force often contesting with their will for the body and the SOUL. They are, as Frisk has seen them a few times before, a child of their age, with pale, pale skin, such a contrast to Frisk's tawny, and lighter hair and darker eyes—oh, Chara's eyes—not even Asriel's in his greatest moments of rage in that hideous persona frightened them so terribly—

Where Frisk finds steady ground, the strength again to stand, now it's Chara who stumbles, only half-able to keep their feet, their face a mask of pain and rage.

**WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?**

_Nothing you haven't done to yourself, Chara. Please. It's like Sans said—please,_ please _believe it. There's nothing to fight, nothing to destroy, no one to kill. Y—we don't need to kill. Not this time. Not ever again._

 **Why** _**not** _ **this time? Why** _**not** _ **ever again? You think this world is going to get better just because some kid climbs the mountain, lives to tell the tale, frees all the Monsters . . . You think Humans will ever change?**

_I think, Chara, that even the worst person can change. It's not about . . ._

**He doesn't.**

_Maybe he didn't, once, but . . ._ They pause, they hate the words, so much like what Undyne said . . . _This isn't about Monsters anymore, or even Humans. Chara. It's YOU. Please. Don't—I don't—don't hurt yourself this way, don't . . . don't you see what you're_ doing _to yourself?_

Chara fights for a retort, chokes against it, drops to their knees, arms wrapped around their body, shuddering, just shuddering . . . When they glance up again at Frisk their eyes are burning, deep, and even though they don't smile now there's something always of that hellish grin about their face—something taunting, something terrible—

Frisk bites at their lip, hates this, hates what Chara's doing to themself. KR only works against someone whose SOUL—well—someone who's filled with LOVE. If Chara could just—could just—

_Please. Stop FIGHTing. Give up, Chara. It's okay. It's over, it's done, just—_

The same, same words Sans had said, or nearly so—

Chara lunges to their feet, that abysmal smile fixed again; in this place, incorporeal, one's physical strength means absolutely nothing—neither did it in the Underground, however, when it was one's SOUL which served as reflection of true prowess, MERCY or . . . No. This, as so often is the case, is merely a test of wills—

Frisk dodges one blow, a sharp-swung fist, but from next-to-nowhere comes Chara's other hand; fingers clutch at them like claws and oh, and oh, the awful words they're whispering—in Frisk's shock, from sheer brute force, they find themself thrown to their knees—tears spring to their eyes—but they refuse to cry—

And yet—

They can feel it—

Their SOUL—that fragile, battered, bartered SOUL—

 _If—if Chara destroys us—if Chara kills me before—before—(butIdon'twant_ them _todie—)_

But that truth, that truth, is Chara's alone, is wrought by their own hands, is death by their own reckoning, until the final point, and then . . . As much Frisk had known, begging Sans to strike the blow, but no amount of hope that this will ensure peace, once and for all, could justify—

Justify—

_Sans is the judge, and not unfair; this . . ._

**This IS your fault.**

**Because you're FIGHTing, Frisk. Ha. So the little pacifist isn't so pure . . .**

_To . . . protect the Monsters that I love, the world, from you?_

Frisk finds their feet at last, weary, dizzy, sick beneath the moral onslaught and Chara's perpetual taunting. They stare at the First-Fallen-One defiantly, arms crossed, silently witnessing the aftermath of the latter's second onslaught, the continued and spasmodic shuddering as if from pain, from guilt, from sins innumerable crawling.

* * *

"Stay DETERMINED, Frisk. You are our ambassador—you are the future and the hope of all of us, Monsters and Humans both! Don't give up hope. We haven't, Frisk."

* * *

(Soft, soft light, soft orange light, soft courage-light; he does not leave trails as much as fire-wisps, but never have such wisps of bright-burning-light brought such soothing peace. The body does not stir, and soon enough the great king rises from his knees to bid farewell—Toriel won't let him stay long in the sickroom, anyway. But little can he know that Frisk has heard.)

* * *

They've found a rhythm to the struggle of it.

Chara strikes again.

 **Pathetic old fool . . . What, he doesn't think I'll recognize those words? Or you? The idiot. Even then, he thought** _**I** _ **was the future . . . ha. So now that title's conveniently carried over to your humble highness, Frisk. (We STILL should have killed him . . .)**

Frisk knows that dodging merely prolongs the inevitable—sad, savage truth that is, and the horrid irony: arms crossed, head bowed, they absorb the blow and let Chara suffer the aftermath, can't think of anything to say. They're tired—oh, so tired—but they know that this can't last forever—

And for every cracking of their SOUL that, for just a fleeting moment, left them wondering when they'd last thought of reaching for a SAVE point . . . for every crack that Chara strikes, for every wave of retribution that they suffer . . . as a counterbalance come Asgore's fire-wisps of orange light . . .

* * *

And green tendrils, too, in time, stabbing through the darkness like phosphorescent spears; in Frisk's mind there's the memory of a big, big, sharp-toothed grin.

* * *

"C'mon, punk! Snap out of it. You're stronger than they are. You always were. C'mon. If you got past me, you can get past anything. Still true, kid! So don't give up, okay?"

* * *

Chara snarls, swings at Frisk with all their might; the latter clenches their teeth, can't muffle the cry that no one can hear. _"If you can get past me"_ —oh, oh, in the worst timelines—would that they'd never have.

But as before, with Asgore, there is Undyne to counteract Chara's onslaught: in this truest timeline of them all, she is their friend without a question asked: her healing magic is decidedly less warm—all terse, coarse coaxing—but it's still filled with love, and it's that love, real love, towards which Frisk is drawn, and from which they regain their strength.

* * *

Alphys' magic, surprisingly, is both tentative and firm, but Frisk recognizes it without a doubt. They think of her designing a body for Mettaton and owning up to the Amalgamates and finding love with Undyne and realize, yes, that once Alphys commits to something and surmounts her greatest fears, she possesses great resolve—and such, here, must be the case. Frisk vaguely feels something placed beside them, too, as a talisman, a comfort-thing, no matter that it's made of plastic and certainly not soft enough to cuddle . . . some sort of anime figurine, most likely . . .

* * *

"F-Frisk? S-Sans says t-that you're s-still in there, t-that m-maybe you can h-hear us. Uhm. M-maybe not . . . b-but . . . p-please. F-feel this, o-okay?"

A strong, strong, loving wave of golden light, prickling at Frisk, surreal, beautiful and terrible: the exhilaration of standing in a lightning-storm and feeling the charged particles . . .

"I . . . I k-know it m-must be scary . . . f-fighting a-against t-them . . . a-against someone w-who wants y-your d-destruction . . . e-even if i-it's j-just s-some dark p-part of y-yourself . . . b-but . . . Frisk . . . y-you saved m-me f-from that p-part of _m-myself_ , and . . . and . . . uhm. I k-know you c-can win. But y-you . . . you h-have to FIGHT t-this t-time . . . y-you understand? Uhm. Oh. O-okay. Th-the—Toriel w-wants m-me to leave, so y-you can . . . r-rest. Uhm. But. Uhm. P-please. F-Frisk. Please . . ."

* * *

 **"P-p-please, F-Frisk, p-p-please"—HA. Aha. So Alphys thinks her stupid dolls and sob story of how much you've helped her is enough? After what she's done—pity that you ran into her in the True Lab. She should've killed herself a long, long time ago . . . Thinks it's so damn easy, huh? That such awful, fucked-up** _**things** _ **can actually hope to live with their** _**families** _ **again?**

Frisk sets their teeth, clenches their fists.

_They did though, Chara. Oh. They did. It's . . . I don't know, it couldn't have been easy, and Alphys—Alphys still has bad days—but—M-Monsters are so forgiving . . . unlike you. I don't know. You wouldn't understand, I don't think you could . . ._

A derisive snort, beneath which lies a twisted fury—Frisk can sense it—that the words have, inadvertently, struck some sort of blow their own—and not for the first time do they see the glimmer of that good person Chara once had been, glinting through the ugliness—they've never, to Frisk's knowledge, spoken of themself degradingly—but surely they must feel some—some sort of—regret?—or—if nothing else, as Sans had said, their sins—

**You don't think I can FEEL?**

Frisk, who's long since given up trying to clamber to their feet, has mere seconds to glance up with a startled cry before Chara's pinned them down, astraddle them, nails biting at their shoulders, the knuckles of one fist almost caressing their cheek before pain explodes behind their eyes.

The deep-red SOUL, DETERMINATION incarnate, shudders, cracks again—always there are cracks—and Frisk fears that no amount of healing or encouragement from their friends can fix this—

Above them, Frisk hears Chara's breathing catch; with every grunt of effort from the onslaught of those fists, there's the faintest hitch, a hiss of pain—

**THIS is what I feel.**

* * *

Frisk can almost picture him recoiling from the damage he senses in their SOUL.

But then they feel him stroke their head, half-wrap his gangly arms about them, their cheek pressed awkwardly against the chest-plate of his battle-body.

* * *

"FRISK. PLEASE. IT'S BEEN ALMOST A WEEK. TORIEL IS WORRIED. YOU SHOULD SEE HER, FRISK—BUT MAYBE YOU ALREADY DO? SHE TAKES SUCH GOOD CARE OF YOU. MONSTERS ARE MUCH EASIER TO CARE FOR THAN HUMANS ARE, I THINK. YOU NEED FEEDING, AND WASHING, AND . . . ALL SORTS OF THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND . . . BUT . . . ANYWAY. WE MISS YOU, FRISK. WHEREVER YOU ARE, PLEASE COME BACK SOON."

A pause; Frisk remains absolutely still, feeling waves on waves of blue wash over them; despite themself, despite the pain, they smile—if they try, they swear they can almost see him—or at least his face, all drawn with worry—

Something wet—one of those incongruities they know they've never solve—drops onto their cheek—

"I . . . AM NOT CRYING. I DO NOT . . . I . . . FRISK . . ."

Papyrus holds them for a moment more, apparently speechless.

"SANS HAS SAID THAT YOU ARE—THAT YOU ARE FIGHTING THE FIRST-FALLEN-HUMAN, WHO . . . HAS DONE SOMETHING VERY BAD . . . JUST DO WHAT I WOULD DO, DEAR FRISK: BELIEVE IN _YOU_. I KNOW . . . YOU CAN . . . I KNOW YOU'RE BETTER THAN WHATEVER THEY HAVE DONE.

"I . . . I PROMISE."

* * *

Chara pauses, panting, choking on something red running from their lips.

**Forgettable.**

The SOUL quivers, a shattered glass, a million shards, scarcely able now to hold its shape, but hold its shape it does. Frisk catches at their hand, their arm, stilling the rain of blows, blinks up at them with dark, dark eyes. Whatever that liquid might be, it drips across their face and stings their eyes, like blood. But now, with grim-weary satisfaction, it's their turn to smile.

_Never forgotten. No._

* * *

They sit by the child's bedside, as they always do when no one's come to pay a call—and as the days have blurred one into another, Toriel's firmly closed the door to them, thanked them for their kindness and their love for Frisk, but asked them, one by one, to leave. Now the house is still, is silent, thick: the foundation creaks, the floors whispering beneath their hushed-shushed feet, each keeping their steps as soft as possible as if for fear of waking them.

Sans stares at his own hand, swallowed by Toriel's great paw, in a state of mild shock. The week has been . . . he doesn't know . . . but looking after Frisk, exchanging tasks—spoon-feeding them when the body shifts to a bizarre, blank-minded consciousness—and cleaning them—and bathing them—and treating them, for all intents and purposes, as an infant once again—has had the unexpected effect of slowly coaxing the story from him, or the little truths he's hidden well, even from himself. Here and there, at the great Boss Monster's side, while feeding the child or warming them some broth or even while tenderly, so tenderly, washing their body in a tub of shallow water, he'll tell her a secret. About this timeline or that.

About the years between Chara and Frisk and when he'd had no promises to keep; when he himself had shown no MERCY.

And yet, despite all this, here still she is, they are: at the child's bedside.

Silence—much time has been spent in silence, really, except for his truths, and dinners with P'yrus and Asriel. (Undyne's been a dear and made them trays and trays of hotdishes and simple meals; she's even tried her hand at pies, but everyone's privately agreed that those are Tori's expertise alone.)

He wonders if, in the face of Frisk's body and the struggle for their SOUL, she's simply forgiven him because all of them have done things bad beyond telling. Circumstances forced their hands, or so they thought, and . . . now, this moment, feels far more desperate and worth their time and energy than picking at the past and mistakes and awful moments of regret and the things that otherwise might have made them strangers to one another.

Or maybe it isn't a matter of forgiveness, not by that name, as simply her great integrity and love.

"You have saved our child in this timeline more times than I can count," she whispers suddenly, stroking at his hand with one great paw and Frisk's clenched fist with the other. "And yet, dear one, I can feel you fighting, too, as much as . . . them."

And so it's been: over the past week, ah, whatever subtle changes have occurred in the child's body have been supplemented by that signature of theirs, the regathering of the essence and truth of the person known as Frisk. But it's not without a price, and not without a struggle: the SOUL is yet contested, and its haunted echoes still chill Toriel to the core. It's why she's kept Asriel away . . . and how he's pleaded . . . and that's almost broken her heart, the same . . .

"You fear that you did not do the right thing. Or that if it was . . . it would cost you everything. But dear one . . . I . . . there is nothing for me to forgive, do you understand? There is nothing to regret. I understand; when you first explained what this—what this karmic retribution is . . ." She pauses a moment, faintly trembling, searching for the proper words. "Do you know what I have done from what I deemed was necessary?"

Uncertain now, he shakes his head.

"I attacked them, too. I wanted to test them, to see if they were strong enough to survive outside the RUINS. Of course, I would not have killed them, but . . ." Toriel's fangs gleam, a bitter smile. "Sometimes, in those other timelines I still do not fully understand, I am sure that the eyes which looked into my own were not our Frisk's."

"no." His eyes flash darkly towards her, and she realizes then that such honesty was a mistake—because he's seen and he remembers all those timelines, when—when she was but a pile of drifting dust behind the door—

"Ah! Dearest one . . ." Her paw slips from his hand to brush at his shoulders, the indigo murmurs of magic from her SOUL far more an apology. "Forgive me."

"reality's in front of us, tori. there's nothing to be sorry for. it's ugly, all of it, all the way around."

"Tch. Do not say that." She nuzzles at him for a moment, both of them staring at the child now. "No. This is . . . this is the greatest reality of all, is it not? I . . . do not wish to think . . . that the only way for this to end is for Chara to be . . . I do not know if they can be killed, if they can die, but . . . if I could . . . if I could do it all again . . . when I think of what they did to my son . . . to those spiders . . . their hatred for Snowdrake . . . their hatred for love . . . for Humanity . . . I do not know. I do not know. It would have changed everything, would it have not?"

"killing them? who knows. maybe frisk wouldn't be alive now, if chara had died, uh, prematurely . . ."

A heavy sigh; the yearning to avenge the wrongs inflicted on her son, on Asgore, on their Frisk does not dissipate so easily, but . . . "It does not matter, except what now can be done."

He reaches out to ruffle the child's hair, now grown slightly oily despite their care; Toriel still holds their hand, and his, and together, tenderly, almost as one, they reach out to the true, dear child whom they love, calling their name.

* * *

"Frisk. Dear child of my heart. It is not your time to leave us. Please. Come back to us, dear innocent . . ."

"kiddo. hey. i did what you asked—it isn't over, frisk. c'mon, buddy. i know you can hear me."

"Chara. We showed you love, did we not? Child, we showed you love and welcomed you home, but it was home you never wanted. It is done with, long over and done with . . . That was centuries ago. This world is not your own."

Sans thinks a moment, trembling, knowing but not having the heart to tell her how empty and shallow those words are as weapons against the fiend: they don't care, not even after all these years, well enough he's learned.

To _them_ , he has nothing to say.

* * *

Chara flings themself from Frisk, as if that tawny skin burns them, as if those gentle eyes pierce them as surely as a knife. But it isn't Frisk that they recoil from—it's the indigo light pouring over them, the both of them, a firestorm, a sea of flame; Frisk leans into it, a look of something like the deepest peace, almost a rapture, drawn across their face; but to Chara—oh—it burns—it burns—how can Frisk find comfort in _fire_?

And cyan flares, like ropes—Frisk tangles themself in those beacons flung, rolling as they've rolled in many a leaf-pile—but Chara stumbles—falls—their ankles bound, their clenched fists useless as their wrists are wrapped in threads stronger than anything they could hope to break. But those cyan bonds do no harm to them as they struggle, though, as well Frisk knows: this won't end that way.

* * *

It's night, a silent night, a moon-snuffed night grown all dark with clouds which scud across the sky like restive ghosts. The trees whisper: tame ones planted in most yards sing a dirge of sorts and the forests, near the mountain, keen a wild cry.

It was the trees which woke him, though he doesn't fully understand their song, nor why he wakes with deepest dread crawling through his roots.

It seems a long way from the couch, where P'yrus has sprawled himself to sleep. Frisk's sickroom is, of course, the room they all used to share, and although both Sans and Mom had offered that he spend the long, long nights with them, he can't leave P'yrus alone. He also doesn't think Mom knows he doesn't sleep, and the last thing he wants is to add one more worry to her burden.

And a long journey it is, down the narrow hall, for Asriel and his straining vines and the unwieldy pot. Both bedroom doors have been left slightly ajar, lest anyone is needed, but the noise of his coming does not seem to waken either Sans or Mom, for which he breathes a sigh. He feels his way through the darkness, wrinkling his little nose at the pervasive scents which reach him—what they are, he doesn't know—perhaps they're nothing in reality, merely the pungent weight of sickness . . .

The child smells sweet, after all, when he finally comes to shuddering halt beside them, forcing shaking vines to hold the pot in place until he can right himself and reach up, upwards towards their still, still body, his deep-vermillion eyes only level with the mattress; scarcely can he see them, dark silhouette in deeper darkness as they are . . .

It doesn't matter. He almost doesn't want to look. Given the song that woke him, he's feared the worst—but if it were such a terrible truth, surely Mom would know—and Sans—

He almost doesn't want to look, but it isn't to see them that he came.

* * *

"Frisk? H-hey. I know . . . everyone trusts you . . . I trust you . . . but I just . . . I don't . . . I don't like this plan, Frisk. I just . . . want you to wake up. That's all. That's all. I know that you can . . . win . . . R-remember what you promised me? That you wouldn't let them win?"

He's shaking, shaking until the pot rattles; the furthest he can stretch his vines is just to brush their hand where it lays clenched atop the covers. But his mind carries him far different places than the sickroom and the child and himself—he remembers, first, the sight of Chara's body, his last remaining thread of consciousness before the world was torn from him and cast anew. Far stronger than that, however, far more powerful, is what he felt when Frisk held him—in this form and the last, the resurrection of his body but for the power of every SOUL of every Monster in the Underground—

No—the last time—when with a tear-streaked face they'd come to him, to seek him out, on merely a shred of hope, because Chara had been loud that night—

"Y-you're not, you're n-never, really what they turn you into, Frisk. You're still you. It's _always_ still you. Please. Don't give up. Just wake up and—

"Please, Frisk, everyone loves you so, so much. I've—I've seen everyone that's come to see you, and . . . and watched Mom and Sans take care of you . . . please, Frisk . . . don't ever forget that . . . no matter what they say . . . it's worth it, all of it, every second of it, even the hardest things and awful things and . . .

"I . . . Frisk, I can feel you. Feel you more than them. So I guess—I guess—"

But he can't finish the thought, realizing as the words tumble from his lips that it isn't words they need. He strokes their hand with the softest leaf he has, strains higher, somehow, still, enough to curl a vine about their head, brushing hair back from their cheek—

Their cheek is sticky, moist—

With no more than silent tears, the child's crying.

* * *

Chara's crying, too.

Or so it seems: that same strange red liquid dripping from their lips drips from their eyes as they grin up at Frisk, a twisted, spiteful smile, utterly contemptuous. They haven't moved from where they've fallen, though there are no cyan ropes to bind them now, and Frisk knows why, feels it even in their own self, the same cracked SOUL they share: the same single point of health between them.

They wonder, briefly, what will happen when—

But—

To save this world? Their friends?

**You're so afraid of dying?**

Frisk swallows, crouches down, remembers the comfort of their friends and feels renewed strength run through their limbs. _No. I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid to die._

Chara seems on the verge, many times in the next moments, of saying something, anything, of hurtling one last attack at Frisk—not physical, it's far too late for that—but something that they'll never in all their days forget . . .

Frisk reaches out, one shaking hand, to wipe at Chara's face. That liquid isn't blood—raw DT, perhaps? The sort that Alphys would have extracted from the other SOULs? Whatever it might be, it sends an uncanny charge through them, a familiar feeling such that they forget, sometimes, its power . . . DETERMINATION . . .

The first fallen one is silent now, is strangely still but for their labored breathing and how they flinch away from Frisk—but that doesn't deter them—can't. As tenderly as they've ever been held or held others in turn, so now do they embrace Chara. _Chara_. Neither fiend nor demon, not even the first fallen Human—no. In this, Frisk will give them no epithet but that, but their own truest name.

* * *

Gold light slips through the window, rouses him from a strange stupor. He had no visions, not this night, no sleepless dreams. He's forgotten, for just a moment, where he is—and casts around—petals shielding his swollen eyes—his pollen-furred face still stiff with the dried remnants of tears.

"Don't cry."

The voice is hoarse and soft, something not used for many days.

"Please—don't cry."

He shakes his head, adamantly refusing this to be the truth . . .

"As . . . riel . . ."

A hand, shaking uncontrollably, so feebly strokes his cheek—

Only once before, once before in some half-forgotten memory, has he felt them so weak, their SOUL no more than shards somehow held together by—by DETERMINATION—by sheer force of will—

 _Don't cry_ , they said, but how can he not? How can he not, when they are crying, too, and what more is there for him to do than cry in earnest, in his high, high reedling voice, for Mom?

* * *

"My child—oh—"

Tori's at their side, holding their hand, and so they rest on flaming seas of indigo—longer than they need to, really—simply because they can. Because, in truth, they no more expected to survive this than the fall . . .

Tentatively, tentatively, a trail of cyan light finds them: well enough they can understand why Sans' love and hope is tempered still with fear—

Until Papyrus' own exuberance counterbalances. "FRISK! YOU ARE RECOVERED!"

"Yeah," they murmur softly, "yeah, think that's true."

"YOU ARE AWAKE!"

"But they are still exhausted," Toriel admonishes, smiling gently at the gangling skeleton who stands poised over their bedside, ready to envelop them in a fiercely joyous embrace. "Hush now, dear, let's let them rest . . ."

And so they do.

Little do they know that the day has been spent in relief and celebration, the joyous news passed from one friend to the next, the visitors all gently rebuffed by the great Boss Monster—"Tomorrow, maybe; tomorrow, let's see" has become her mantra, particularly useful when Asgore calls almost every hour to check up on their progress, and Undyne to offer them her own special strain of tough-love encouragement, and Alphys to whisper that she wishes them well.

Sans, as it were, spends a few hours with her anyway—Tori lets him go—feels him struggling, as she'd half-expected, with the joy and terror. Another great uncertainty this is for him, one none of them could have been prepared for . . . And some words, some truths, are meant much more for a friend than a lover, anyway—perhaps it's for the working out of thorns that he's gone to her—the darker things that perhaps he'll never tell Toriel herself . . .

And, in its own way, she appreciates everyone's absence. Papyrus, restive in the house, has gone to hang out with the temporarily Alphys-less Undyne, leaving only Asriel to keep them company while Frisk continues to awaken, slowly regaining consciousness and voluntary control over their body. Toriel still bathes them, helps them brush their teeth, holds a fork so they can taste one of Undyne's hotdishes—and Monster food, being what it is, returns a healthy color to their cheeks.

Soon enough she sits on the couch, both blanket-swaddled children in her lap, half-asleep herself. And for the first time in so long, a deep, deep sense of peace roots itself within her SOUL: rocking Frisk and Asriel, she knows now that what happened those centuries ago, holding another child, was never what was meant to be—but this, but this, the culmination.

* * *

The day seeps into night and when they wake again, it's dark. Toriel's tucked them back into their bed, Asriel's pot cocooned beside them; across the room, they catch the faintest silhouette of Papyrus in his racecar bed, to all the world asleep.

But something stirs them and on still-wobbly legs they stand, brushing a hand against Asriel's soft face in a promise of return. They hear him rustle, feel the brushing of him—his presence, really, neither SOUL nor color—and they smile, smile, wondering, hoping, that he'll know that he, that _he_ , has saved their life.

Sans is waiting for them in the kitchen, two mugs of hot chocolate on the table, _A Wrinkle in Time_ set between them, and a heaping slice of pie at their place. They know the book is merely an enticement as they slide into the chair—there are far bigger things for them to talk about, someday if not now.

The sight of Mom's familiar pie brings a fresh wave of joy to them, their SOUL, a re-strengthening and kindling of love, as if they will always bear a piece of that healing-fire of hers in the deepest recess of their heart.

And his—those cyan ropes he threw to them, those anchor-points, those blessed tethers which kept them anchored to themself.

When they glance up again, it's to find that he's watching them, though very gently; the lightpoints of his eyes are soft, and there's a subtlety to the grin he wears. He reaches out to catch the tears they don't realize they shed; he smells of the same cold-winter-snap as Gaster, and of course a bit like Mom, trace lingerings of cinnamon tickling their nose.

"that hot chocolate's getting beautiful."

Despite themself they giggle. "You mean it's getting cold."

"heh, so you remember? welp. have a drink, frisk-o, you look like you could use it."

The hot chocolate warms them from the crown of their head to the tips of their toes, and Toriel's pie fills them with such sweet nostalgia and echoes of returns and—

(A lump catches in their throat. Each run that was at Chara's hand, before his last attack, they'd eaten the pie and—)

"kiddo. hey. look at me."

The scraping of a chair; Frisk closes their eyes, and, trusting that he's there, drops their head against him, feeling his steadfast weight and warmth. Slowly, slowly, the trembling leaves them, and Sans gently presses the fork back into their grasp. "this stuff's good for ya. c'mon. it'll be okay."

Frisk studies the slice, sets down the fork, remembers something else, another joke of _theirs_ , and picks up the pie to eat with their bare hands.

Sans shakes his head.

"i won't tell tori, frisk, don't worry."

"I . . . Chara used to eat pie with their hands," they mumble around a mouthful, half-ashamed and yet finding the need to somehow explain themself. "And . . . and . . . they said so often that they didn't want to be forgotten." A sidewise glance. "Please. Sans. Don't think about who they were when—when you met them. The real part of them was lost for so, so long and now . . ."

"yeah, buddy, i understand."

He rubs their back as they finish the pie and drain the mug, then just holds them for a while, as he's done so many times at this table and this hour of the night. He wonders what had happened, knows deep-down what it must have been—can't bear to think about it, really, because he knows that what Frisk faced was something so terrible to them . . . Even before the timeline turns he'd understood it to be a basic fact, that sometimes the most extenuating circumstances merit killing—sometimes to protect the ones you love, and sometimes as an act of MERCY. What had Chara done but locked themself into the demon's warning-trap? The eternal return worthy only of gnashed teeth.

But Frisk—

Frisk had garnered the eternal confirmation and seal.

"kiddo, if you ever want to talk about what happened," he offers finally, "know that you can talk to me, okay? but if you don't, i understand. i don't . . . you know, there's a lot that i still don't talk about—and not just from the world you knew. i've been around a lot longer than that."

"Are you older than Mom?"

A wry chuckle. "eh, who's counting? nah, i'm not."

Easily they lapse into silence, Frisk letting him hold them, feeling the trace of him against their SOUL—would that they could know what a miracle it seems to him, reaching for them thus: he feels the scars, of course, and feels the slightest . . . absence . . .

But Frisk themself is sound and whole and well and here, and the simple truth of that, when all else hung for so long in the balance over the days and nights before, is more than good enough.

They're beginning to nod off again, the cold-beautiful hot chocolate and pie having done the trick. Gently he shakes them, helps them to their feet, grabs the book and half-carries them into the living room, the couch. Frisk snuggles up against him, needing no blankets for his warmth, and he flicks on the little reading-light Tori keeps on the table there. He's perhaps halfway through the wonderful evening Calvin has with Meg and Charles Wallace and their family, with Dr. Murray's Bunsen-burner stew, before he realizes that the child is asleep—

And well enough that is; it's hard to keep his eyesockets open, anyway; he fumbles for the lamp, feels the book fall to the floor, begs Toriel a silent pardon—which is to say nothing of the librarian from whom Frisk borrowed it.

His dreams that night are uneventful. For the first time in . . . he doesn't know how long . . . he does not dream of RESETs, or children with knives, or dust-filled pans, or hellish eyes, or dead brothers and beloveds. No. He dreams simply of an open field and a night-struck sky wherein the whole spread and glory of the cosmos is laid bare for him; Papyrus plays in the flowers with a royal child in his truest form, whose laughter is the cry of the most gorgeous of bells; Toriel's wrapped him in her arms and thus they sit, the two of them, almost indistinguishable, their SOULs entwined, as ever and always it seems they are these days.

Frisk asks to know the names of all the nebulae, and—impossibility it is, but so impossibilities are possible in dreams—it's a gentle spray of song which answers them.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions, do feel free to holler. Yes, I know I'm taking liberties with how quickly the issue with Frisk's being gone from the hospital is dropped, at least from the perspective of (Human) law enforcement . . . but meh. It was one more logistical issue to tangle with and that sort of realism isn't, nor has it ever been, the point of things.
> 
> Also! I forgot to mention that I owe thanks to [Underlab's theories](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXEiQSP33MnlR67JzaR8eNw) for pointing out that the concept of Karmic Retribution is really only applicable on the Genocide route; if you were to fight Sans on a Pacifist run, he really would probably be the easiest enemy, dealing 1 damage and all that, because there's nothing sinful to count against you. So when I was trying to think of how Chara could be injured/worn down/defeated and Frisk would be (somehow) okay at the end of the day . . . it was this idea which stuck with me. I know I'm taking liberties with the idea of how KR works, but basically I'm working on the idea that it's perpetuated not only by taking damage (i.e. hit after hit when fighting Sans) but also by one's own violent actions and intent to cause harm.
> 
> Anyway, thoughts/comments/reviews/critiques/etc. are all appreciated, and do me good, and, uh, I don't hope this was enjoyable, per se, but I am glad that you're along for the ride just the same. <3


End file.
